A Little Girl Lost

Hospitalized after a serious injury I developed pneumonia. A culture of my secretions grew out MRSA (mer-sa) and the nurses moved me to an isolation room. My doctors said that if I lived I would have brain damage, be bedridden, and ventilator dependent. They told my husband that he was too young to be stuck with an invalid wife and they offered to let me die—comfortably, of course. My husband, remembering his wedding vows, chose life for me, and had me transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, GA.

As spring arrived, I had a birds-eye view of treetops outside my second floor isolation room window. Spring had always been my favorite season and I watched tender red shoots and buds appear on tiny limbs, followed by the smallest pairs of green leaves. Those signs of new life brought me comfort and encouragement.

However, one tree didn’t grow new branches or buds. Each day it was the same ash gray color and I decided that it was dead. I told everyone who came to see me that I wished someone would cut it down so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

Then one sunny morning I saw tiny pairs of green leaves on that dead tree. I began to weep as I realize what I’d been saying about that tree was what the doctors had said about me. I knew then God was with me, telling me my life wasn’t over.

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NKJV).